IMHO, the answer is somewhere between August 1, 2011 and Never. The August 1, 2011 date is the 3 year anniversary of the merger; which would clear them of the Section 182 restrictions.

But I'm not sold on AT&T ever buying them outright because of the concentration of licenses in the S-Band that they would have. AT&T has gathered a large number of WCS licenses, IIRC, which could put them in a bit of a problem with the FCC. Note that Verizon and AT&T have been forced to divest various licenses because of owning too much of one market as they've been buying up land. If they were to buy both DARS licenses (XM and Sirius), it could be looked at more closely than the XM and Sirius merger was looked at, IMHO. So I'm not quite sold on it ever happening.

JohnnyIrish - the first ownership change was the XM and Sirius merger on August 1, 2008. That is why the restrictions to Liberty run through August 1, 2011 (the 3 year anniversary of the merger). Sirius XM is now under the Section 182 restriction... it is why Liberty has been limited to 49.9% ownership and the reason why Sirius won't allow anyone to become 5% filed owners - so that the two combined wouldn't constitute the second ownership change with 3 years.

it appears i forgot to post the reason for the poll. I felt there may be an accelerated sale due to this quote

Malone has history with AT&T. Granted, Malone made a fortune by selling Tele-Communications Inc. to the old AT&T, which had a penchant for overreaching megadeals. SBC Communications Inc. acquired AT&T and adopted its brand. In January, AT&T introduced a co-branded satellite television service with DirecTV. The new incarnation of AT&T is more conservative about its leverage, and the view that it will buy DirecTV is not universally held.

As the marketing pact between AT&T and DirecTV illustrates, satellite does fix a gap in the telcom's offerings.

"Our long-running thesis has been that the satellite companies combine with the telephone companies," Gamco's Marangi says.

I did vote november....although i understand the poison pill and the NOL reductions...i wonder if there was any way AT&T would scoff at the 2 and/or maybe they were put in place to keep AT&T away because they had already been approached.

Sirius and XM don't have any bandwidth to give up. Have you listened to the heavily compressed quality of the programming as it is? I couldn't imagine them giving away any more bandwidth.

Besides, what would you put on it? The AT&T customers wouldn't have access to it, since it's in Sirius/XM's portion of the S-Band... they would need one of those receivers to even get it. The only thing would be if AT&T became a content provider for that spectrum... AT&T isn't in the business of being a provider of content... only a deliverer of it.

Sirius and XM don't have any bandwidth to give up. Have you listened to the heavily compressed quality of the programming as it is? I couldn't imagine them giving away any more bandwidth.

Besides, what would you put on it? The AT&T customers wouldn't have access to it, since it's in Sirius/XM's portion of the S-Band... they would need one of those receivers to even get it. The only thing would be if AT&T became a content provider for that spectrum... AT&T isn't in the business of being a provider of content... only a deliverer of it.

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Seems to me like they are late to the party. Comcast, DirectTV, SiriusXM, Hughes......
They are trying to bully market share because they simply have an amazing network. What they need is to buy SIriusXM, add their content, and offer WiFi and sat network second to none on the planet.

homer i agree, im trying to figure out how the relationship could work....At&T could be XM, (im thinking out loud) say, like a rebranding (not that its needed) but say they paid some money to have some channels they rebroadcasted under a different name...dunno, again just thinking out loud...

Scenario...SXM replaces all radios with interops for free, then they could expand their selection say, by 25%, then they would have 3/4 of the bandwidth and partition the other 25% to AT&t...although SXM would be the Parent company...maybe renting the bandwidth...(yes were talking 5 years or more down the road)

my xmp3 is real small and picks up 5 channels, so im guessing there is 5 chips....if the next generation of iphones has wifi, SXM sat chip, and 5G wouldn't it be the most powerful entertainment tool ever...?